Championship rivals welcome Singapore changes in interviews with Sky Sports News HQ; Hamilton hopes some "tricks" of his speed are now not as easily relayed while Rosberg hopes it's not as straightforward to combat tactics in close all-Merc duels
Thursday 18 September 2014 09:20, UK
Title rivals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have welcomed the move to limit the pitwall’s communication with drivers from this weekend’s Singapore GP - with each now hoping that the crackdown presents more chances to gain an on-track edge over the other.
As Hamilton and Rosberg prepare to recommence their tense duel for the championship on the floodlit streets of Marina Bay, the changes to pit-to-car radio communications centered on performance introduced for the start of the season's final flyaway rounds continue to prove the dominant talking point in the sport.
Last week the FIA wrote to all teams explaining that all messages delivered to the cockpit relating to driver and car performance were now banned, with clarification on the revised reading of the rules distributed earlier this week.
And in separate interviews with Sky Sports News HQ’s Craig Slater at a Mercedes sponsor event in Singapore on Wednesday, Hamilton and Rosberg each expressed happiness that drivers would now effectively be left to their own devices in the car.
Asked if he could personally profit from the change compared to Rosberg, Hamilton said: “I hope so. I remember way back from when we were in karts, the cool thing in karting [is] you don’t have any data – or we didn’t back then. So no one could ever see where I was quick.
“Maybe that’s a little bit more of a step in that direction because now you have so much data you can see everything, everything I do, any trick that I have. Every driver in every team will see that from his team-mate, but hopefully this is one step in that [other] direction.
“When you’re out there you’re always looking after tyres and you’re trying to find the perfect balance and sometimes you don’t always have the perfect balance in terms of how quick you’re going through each corner, you’ll be losing a bit of time here and there and you’re not completely aware of it. All you know is the gap’s diminishing. So that’s why you sometimes ask for help from your engineers.
“But I quite like now that we’re left to do it ourselves – that’s how it was back in the karting days. So it’s back to the old-school ways.”
Rosberg explained that he had a first experience of the changes during simulator practice at Mercedes’ Northamptonshire HQ on Tuesday prior to arriving in Singapore.
The World Championship leader, whose request for “driving advice” during practice at Hockenheim in July has been widely cited as an example of how car-to-pit communications have got out on control in recent years, said: “I think can make it a lot more interesting also because it used to be like 100 per cent communication a while ago, now they’re only allowed to tell me like 20 per cent of stuff now. So it’s a massive change.
“Yesterday at the factory in Brackley I was in the simulator, all day, practicing these different procedures and everything because I have to remember a lot more also. But I really think it’s good.”
Amid early debate as to which drivers will benefit most from the communication crackdown, Rosberg pointed to one of his closely-fought battles with Hamilton earlier in the season as an example of how the two Mercedes engineering teams could previously effectively cancel each other’s in-race tactics out.
“It’s up to us to make sure that we get to the end of the race with the fuel. It’s up to us to make sure we’re battling individually with our boost positions and things like that,” the German driver continued.
“For example, there was a race earlier on in the season where I was behind Lewis and trying to overtake and his engineering team did a great job because whenever I ramped up my boost, they told him and then he just did the same. So we were always in the same boost position and so I could never have a difference.
“It could be Bahrain or Barcelona, or both even.”
Asked if he lost a win because of that, Rosberg replied: “No, it’s not possible to say because of that, but for sure that was something which I found a pity really. It’s not down to us pure racing to battle it out and use the boost to our own benefit and the way we want. So that’s one of the examples which are going to be totally different now because we are just on our own and we need to figure our way.”
Hamilton, meanwhile, acknowledged that some aspects of altering car performance would now inevitably become harder for the drivers and therefore insisted it was crucial that both he and Rosberg were on the same engine settings at all times.
“In some ways it makes it harder, for example engine strategy and all those different things. How are we to know what strategy to use?" he pointed out.
“It’s going to be really important that we’re on the same strategy always because there have been a couple of times where perhaps Nico’s been on a different strategy to me and what that gives is either more or less power and those things disadvantage you.
“So as long as you don’t have any problems there the rest of it we’ll manage.”
The 2014 Singapore GP is live only on Sky Sports F1 this weekend, with our coverage beginning with Practice from 10.45am on Friday.
